The Nexus
The Nexus, often known as the Void, is a multi-functional computer program designed by Macrohard president Phillip Yates as a means to insure his domination in the gaming market. The program would eventually take on multiple forms and serve dozens of purposes, almost always of malicious intent. The Nexus has been a key element in the war between Phillip's dark armies and Eddie Naka's warriors of light. Fictional History Creation & the Interdimensional Highway The Nexus was developed by Macrohard president Phillip Yates to serve two primary functions. The first was to be the carrier of a malicious virus that he could use to destroy the harddrives of his competitors, most notably the Nintega Corporation. It's secondary and more metaphysical function was its ability to link every video game world together, regardless of their design origin, essentially creating an unseen interdimensional highway. With these combined functions, Phillip and his employees were given access to the harddrives of competing developers where they could unleash their virus in total secrecy. One employee of Macrohard did not agree with these tactics however: his vice president Ms. Fiona Braddock. Without his knowing, Fiona began tampering with the Nexus, and eventually altered the program to include its third and most significant function. Fiona gave the Nexus the ability to take real world organisms and transplant them into the video game world, granting them the likeness and abilities of game characters as well. With this new design, Fiona hoped to defeat the Void Virus from within the game world. 2005 (PEH1) Her first attempts at a redesign were far from complete however, and her alterations had unseen side effects. Most notably, her program unintentionally pulled gamer Miles Spectre into the gaming world, as well as the likenesses of his acquaintances Sally Rouge, Julie Lien, Julian Dimitri, and Jax Girl. Fiona managed to get Miles out of the program before he came to any harm, and her attempts to perfect the program continued unabated. 2007 (PEH2) It was some time before Fiona was finally confident in her new schematics. At a press conference that took place soon after, Fiona took advantage of the anti-Macrohard protest taking place and planted Nexus discs on many Nintega Supporters, including a friend of Miles Spectre by the name of Nate Valdez. These discs, when placed in gaming consoles gave the gamers abilities of various Nintega characters and brought them into the Nexus, where Fiona awaited them to guide them in a battle against Phillip's virus. Phillip discovered a discrepancy in his original program and soon realized that the Nexus had been altered. He immediately used its new function to send his employees into the game world, granting them the abilities of numerous Macrohard characters, so that they could defend his virus until its job was done. Understanding the program inside-and-out, Phillip was able to take control of the Nexus and soon developed it into a home base of sorts, creating a detainment structure among other things. It was in this detainment structure that Phillip would imprison the unknowing Nintega figurehead, Eddie Naka. Yates was also capable of pulling people from the video game world into the Nexus, by applying the virus to the person and not just the game level. Using this feature, Phillip pulled Fiona and Miles into the Nexus so he could confront his rebellious employee. This worked against Yates, as the two escaped his grasp and broke into the detainment center, freeing Eddie Naka and subsequently hijacking a banshee shuttle. They proceeded to travel through the Nexus to one of Macrohard's own game levels. Here, Miles would use the Nexus to unleash the virus into Phillip's own harddrives, corrupting all of his files and sending everyone present back to Earth where they belonged. With the arrest of Phillip Yates, the Nexus would lay dormant for a time, with Fiona feeling inclined to not use the program again. But Miles aspirations in regards to the use of the program did not quite match that of his ally, and Phillip's obsession for revenge would cause them to come at odds once again, in the most unexpected of ways. 2009 (PEH3) Phillip would eventually be moved from a jail to an asylum as his sanity slowly slipped away from him. However this frantic mindset gave him the vision he needed to develope an even more powerful program as a successor to the Nexus. This Omega Halo Installation would allow Phillip to bring the video game personae to Earth, linking them to humans and granting his followers the power to conquer the Earth. However Phillip lacked the required power source he needed to run the new program: the three Tri-Forces (Courage, Wisdom, and Power). Unable to finish the program without them, Phillip eventually lost the will to go on and took his own life. His widowed fiance Amethyst Barone would end up in possession of Phillip's notes and would try to press on with his plans, hoping she could use the program to bring Phillip back from the dead as well, by linking his corpse to the Master Chief persona. However, Amethyst lacked the Tri-Forces also. And so she acquired six Chaos Emeralds, which she used as a temporary power source to fuel the program. With enough juice from the emeralds to bring one game character to Earth, she chose Master Chief. The emeralds left the program weak however and proved insufficient in resurrecting Phillip. Amethyst instead linked the Master Chief persona to Phillip's Nexus program. In doing so, she brought the Nexus to life. Acquiring Sentience Fueled by the Omega Halo Installation and the six Chaos Emeralds, the Nexus found itself personified into a physical being for the first time. It's level of consciousness at this point was minimal and so Amethyst sent her new weapon on it's first mission: find the first Tri-Force before the Chaos fuel runs out. The Nexus, now in the form of Master Chief, tracked the Tri-Force of Wisdom to the South Carolina Home of Sally Rouge. There the Nexus discovered that while Sally had come into possession of the Wisdom Tri-Force during the 2005 Nexus glitch caused by Fiona Braddock, the trinket had been relinquished to Nate Valdez during the 2007 Nexus Activation that had led to the first Game War. Deeming Sally Rouge to be of no further use, the Nexus terminated her and prepared to hunt down Nate Valdez. Before this could be accomplished however, the fuel of the Chaos Emeralds ran out and the Nexus was shut down, reverting back to it's original form of ambient cyber highways. Once again trapped in the Macrohard harddrives, the Nexus had experienced consciousness and that was something that it needed to attain infinitely. Amethyst tried to reprogram the Omega Halo Installation, but without success. And since she was unable to locate any of the Tri-Forces, the Nexus had to take things into it's own non-existent hands. Willing itself into existence on Earth, the Nexus appeared in Amethyst's lab as just the body-less head of Master Chief. The Nexus labeled Amethyst a failure and demanded she hunt down the Tri-Forces. Believing the Nexus to be Phillip, Amethyst argued that she could not find Nate Valdez (who possessed Wisdom), did not know who possessed the Tri-Force of Power, and could not attain Miles Spectre's Tri-Force of Courage because he had been killed. The Nexus directed her to Miles' dark gaming counterpart, Shadow the Hedgehog. She learned that this Shadow creature was a game world personification of Miles' inner demons, and that it was also responsible for Miles' death, having claimed Miles' Tri-Force of Courage as it's own following the murder. Agreeing to help her in exchange for a place on Earth, Shadow relinquished his Tri-Force to Amethyst and the Nexus finally had the beginnings of a Power Source. While the Nexus was no longer in danger of running out of power, the short-lived "kick" that the Chaos Emeralds had supplied was no longer present and the Nexus was forced to stay safely in hiding deep within the Omega Halo Installation. Meanwhile, Amethyst used the Omega Halo Installation to take over the mind of her rival programmer Fiona Braddock and used this control attain the second Tri-Force. While visiting Fiona's Apartment, Wisdom-bearer Nate Valdez was attacked and locked away in a detainment structure within Omega Halo. There he was confronted by Amethyst, who stole his Tri-Force of Wisdom to further fuel what she considered to be her now-undead lover. With the Tri-Force of Courage and the Tri-Force of Wisdom powering the hub, the Nexus had enough strength to defend Amethyst against her enemies. The Nexus took command of Amethyst's forces, while she continued her search for the bearer of the final Tri-Force. The Nexus relished this new life it had been given and would often stare off at the horizon envisioning it all under his control. Before this final Tri-Force could be discovered, Elias Locke and Julie Lien led a team against the Nexus and his soldiers. Because these new enemies had been equipped with game powers as a side-effect of Omega Halo's activation, the only advantages the Nexus had was it's soldiers' respawning abilities and it's own immense strength. The Nexus used these advantages to hold the line of defense at the outskirts of the Omega Halo Installation, even when Miles Spectre, former bearer of the Courage Tri-Force, returned from the dead to join Elias and Julie in battle. Unknown to the Nexus however, Julie's boyfriend Nate, the former bearer of the Wisdom Tri-Force, had escaped the Omega Halo prison and reached the central hub of Omega Halo. There he faced off with Amethyst in her Cortana persona. After a plethora of mind-games, Nate was able to outsmart Amethyst, shutting down Omega Halo, stealing back the Tri-Forces of Wisdom and Courage, and transforming himself into the powerful Fire Mario persona. Without it's main power source, the Omega Halo Installation, which had already begun expanding to encompass the planet, quickly began shrinking back into itself. This event freed Fiona Braddock of Amethyst's control, began zapping the Nexus' power, and stole away his army's ability to respawn. Fearing the end of his very short life, the Nexus demanded that Fiona and Miles tell him the location of the third Tri-Force (Power), just as Nate, Elias, and Amethyst arrived for the spectacle. Fiona refused to reveal the trinket's location. Nate returned to Miles his missing Tri-Force of Courage, just as the Nexus fired a plasma bolt at them, in desperation. The bolt was deflected by a Tri-Force Field that formed around Miles, Fiona, Nate, and Elias. This Field was a result of the three Tri-Forces joining together for the first time. And with this the Nexus realized that Elias Locke had been in possession of the Tri-Force of Power, all along. As his soldiers began to fall around him, the Nexus used what remained of it's immense strength to take down Elias and Miles, leaving only Nate. Depleting Nate of his fire powers, the Nexus prepared to deliver a fatal blow to the fleshy creature that had tried to end his new life. At that moment, Miles (who had powered himself into a Super form with Amethyst's old Chaos Emeralds) decapitated the Nexus, destroying its primary programming and inevitably ending the Battle for Earth. Amethyst and her commander Nack were similarly defeated and with the fall of this dark cabal, Miles and his allies claimed victory and rid the world of a sentient Nexus. 2073 (Epilogue) The Battle for Earth marked the end of the Nexus in regards to sentience. But it's basic programming remained in tact as the Interdimensional Cyber Highway. Even this form of the Nexus saw little use over the next few decades. With Fiona's resignation from Macrohard-Nintega, the Nexus' original programmers had all left it behind and it would lay dormant for some time. It wasn't until roughly 64 years later that a stray Nexus disc from Fiona's Apartment found it's way into her husband Miles' pocket. While visiting Eli's Apartment for a game of Frogger with Elias and Nate, Miles discovered this Nexus Disc and decided to give the program one last spin. The three old men journeyed back into the gaming world with the Nexus, allowing themselves one last adventure and allowing the Nexus one last glimpse of life. The adventure resulted in all three friends getting a Game Over of natural causes and the Nexus itself was never used again. Production Notes *The Nexus is played by two different primary actors: :*In PEH2, the Nexus only appears as a Void and is operated by Mac Russell and Insuh Yoon. :*In PEH3, the Nexus appears as a walking and talking creature: ::*Mac Russell (Soldier Commander) and Mark Tyler (Miles Spectre) are the two primary actors in the Spartan Suit. ::*Mark Tyler is also the voice of the Nexus. ::*Various other actors and actresses portrayed the Nexus at different times, including: :::*Bryan Velzy (Pedestrian Hero), Dom Davis (Ash Hunter), Megan Schaefer (Maya Moto), Johnny Jacapraro (Elias Locke), and Melissa Molle (Rookie Soldier). *The Nexus did not appear in the series until PEH2. :*It is revealed however that the events of PEH1 were almost entirely caused by an early Nexus design. *The Nexus is the only aspect of the PEH series to simultaneously fall into the category of Character, Location, and Object. *The infrastructure of the Nexus has been shot in many different locations throughout the course of the series, including various stages, basements, and garages. Category:Locations Category:Main Characters